


Morphine

by inoubliable



Series: Skin&Earth [5]
Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Confessions, Eddie-centric, M/M, Medicinal Drug Use, gay AS FUCK Eddie Kaspbrak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 19:12:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12659667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inoubliable/pseuds/inoubliable
Summary: Eddie Kaspbrak is fourteen years old. He's a lot more honest with himself when he's drugged.--They all crowd around Eddie's bed, their faces shimmering a little. Eddie has to squint to make out their features, and he laughs once he does. They all look so worried. Eddie feels great."Oh my God," Stan says, at the same time that Richie says, "He'shigh."





	Morphine

**Author's Note:**

> "You set my head free.  
> I want you more and more.  
> Don't want to get clean."  
> -[Morphine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydyglm1biAA), Lights

Eddie Kaspbrak is fourteen years old. 

He breaks his arm. Again. 

It's not nearly so bad this time. It isn't even really broken, more of a fracture, a tiny chip in the bone that was already so damaged. Besides, the circumstances are much less horrible, since it's the work of a bad bike fall and his own clumsiness, not that of a killer clown. 

But the feeling of it, the sharp sick reminder of It, the flush of pain and adrenaline and memory-based fear send him into such panic that he has to be sedated before the doctor can patch him up. 

He's only in the hospital for about an hour, but he gets his own room while they wait for his mother. By some miracle, she hasn't answered the phone. It's midday, and one of her shows is probably on. Eddie wants to delay that particular disaster for as long as possible. He'd like to spend as much time with his friends as he can, because when his mother finally answers and finds out he was with them when it happened, he's probably going to be grounded for life. 

Bill and Stan and Richie manage to sneak into his room. Stan, because he's quiet and unassuming. Bill, because he's polite and disarming. Richie, because they manage to shut him up for ten seconds. 

They all crowd around Eddie's bed, their faces shimmering a little. Eddie has to squint to make out their features, and he laughs once he does. They all look so worried. Eddie feels great. 

"Oh my God," Stan says, at the same time that Richie says, "He's _high_." 

Eddie giggles. 

"A-are you okay, Ed-Eddie?" Bill is leaning over him, looking at him with such open concern that Eddie feels the need to touch, to try and see if he can physically feel Bill's emotion. His hand falls a little short the first time, but he manages to brush Bill's cheek. His gaze falls, apropos of nothing, to Bill's mouth and he has a sudden memory of being twelve years old and asking Bill to kiss him. Good, trustworthy Bill, who Eddie loves endlessly, who has such pretty lips. 

As if he realizes what Eddie is thinking, Bill's face goes red and he backs away from Eddie's hand. 

Richie is laughing. 

"This is priceless!" He takes Bill's place, leaning over the bed into Eddie's field of vision. "Here, Eds, wanna touch me too?" 

Eddie does. 

His hand is still outstretched, and it only takes the smallest amount of effort to dig his fingers into Richie's mess of curly hair. He catches a snag and can't figure out why his fingers stopped moving, so he flexes them instead, rubbing Richie's scalp. Richie's still smiling, but he looks kind of content. Eddie wonders if he'll start to purr like a cat, and the thought makes him laugh. 

"What's so funny, Eddie Spaghetti?" Richie's voice is soft and amused. 

"You are," Eddie says, and Richie looks so shocked and pleased that he can't remember why he's not supposed to say it. "You always make me laugh. Even when your jokes are stupid." Eddie pauses, considering. "Except when you talk about my mom. That's gross." 

"We are never going to hear the end of this," Stan's voice says somewhere off to the side, sounding very resigned. 

"You like my jokes?" Richie sounds like he's trying to sound unaffected, but he falls very short. He sounds stupidly happy about the whole thing. 

Eddie wants Richie to always be happy. Eddie wants to always make Richie happy. 

"I like everything about you," Eddie says earnestly. His voice is kind of disjointed, wavering, because his thoughts are fuzzy and he can't keep them on a careful track, but it's not hard to spout off about Richie. He thinks about Richie most of the time, whether he's high or not. "I like your hair." He flexes his hand in the messy curls again, then tugs his fingers free and touches Richie's cheek instead. "I like your face. You have a really nice face." 

"M-Maybe we sh-should go," Bill says, sounding a little nervous. Bill is the only one in the whole world who knows how Eddie feels about Richie. Eddie confessed his crush the year before, and though they haven't talked about it since, both Bill and Eddie know that it hasn't gone away. 

"No way, man," Richie says without looking away from Eddie. "I wanna hear this. Please, Eds, do continue." 

It's hard to remember where he left off. "Where's Stan?" He remembers hearing Stan. 

"I'm right here," Stan says, peering over Richie's shoulder. Eddie smiles at him. 

"I like Stan, too," Eddie says, because it's true and he doesn't want Stan to feel left out. Stan's smile is gratifying, but Richie looks a little put-out. Eddie brushes a finger over Richie's nose, trying to poke it but not able to muster the right amount of force. "But I like Richie the most." 

"We know," Stan says, which should make Eddie feels nervous, because if Stan already knows, then Richie already knows, and that's a problem. But Eddie can't worry about anything just then, and besides, Richie's eyes look a little wide, like maybe he didn't know after all. 

"Richie is my favorite." Eddie's voice is a little sing-songy. He thinks maybe he actually could sing about how much he loves Richie. He's not a poet like Ben or creative like Bill, but he is passionate and dedicated and very, very high. 

"I th-thought I was y-your favorite," Bill chimes in, clearly trying to diffuse the situation. Eddie's head rolls to the side so he can peer at Bill. His brain tries to make sense of things. Bill is and has always been his best friend, even before he had any other friends, but Richie is... Richie is different. 

"Bill, you're my sunshine," Eddie says, and Bill really looks like it, with his auburn hair shining under the fluorescent lighting, a reddish halo around his face. "But Richie is, like, my air." His hand drops away from Richie's face and swishes vaguely through the air, and he giggles at the feeling of it, the way his limbs feel so heavy it's like he's pushing them through jello. "I like it when the sun's out, but when it goes down, I'm still alive, you know? But I always have to breathe." 

There is a sudden, shocking silence. Eddie doesn't like it, and is sure he's said something wrong, but he really can't decide what it is. He isn't lying. Bill is his best, most steadfast, most important friend, but Richie is his life. 

"Eddie," Richie says, and it sounds like Eddie's name has been torn out of his chest. Eddie blinks at him, smiling stupidly, and Richie starts to lean down into his space, but Stan catches him by the shoulder. 

"Not now," he says quietly. 

Richie looks like he might argue, but Eddie reaches for his face again, knuckles brushing his mouth. Richie's lips are chapped and very pink. Eddie thinks about them more than he should, even when he's sober. 

"I like your mouth," Eddie says quietly, regaining the thread of thought. That's right. He was telling Richie all the things he liked about him. It's about time. 

Richie's mouth falls open, and Eddie's finger accidentally slips inside, brushing the hot wet inside of Richie's bottom lip. Richie's eyes go wide and dark, and he makes a sound Eddie feels more than hears. 

Stan's hand, still on Richie's shoulder, pulls more insistently. 

"We-We're gonna g-go," Bill says, and he grabs Richie's other side, and they drag Richie away. Richie doesn't fight them, and he looks a little dazed, his gaze unwavering on Eddie. The air feels charged, and Eddie is pretty sure it's not the drugs. 

"Good luck with your mom!" Stan calls over his shoulder, and Bill stutters out a goodbye. Richie still says nothing. They disappear from the room as if they were never there. Eddie is almost sure he imagined them, except the hand that was on Richie's face tingles, a phantom sensation of a rough mouth beneath his fingertips. 

He stares at that hand, willing himself not to forget how it feels, willing himself not to forget the look on Richie's face. 

He sleeps, then, the medicine overwhelming him. 

When he wakes up, he does not remember.

* * *

Richie brings it up, because of course he does. 

"Hello, sunshine," he croons the next week at school when Bill joins them at lunch, and it's a new nickname but Eddie thinks it sounds vaguely familiar. Bill's face flushes, and Eddie wonders what he's missing. 

Richie turns on Eddie, then, who has been picking at his sandwich without much enthusiasm. It's his first day back at school since the hospital, which he remembers as a blur of antiseptic smells and bright white lights, all blanketed over by a general fuzzy warmth. He knows he was given morphine. He had spent the rest of that day groggy and floating, so out of it that his mother saved her lecture until the next morning. 

"How are you feeling, Eds?" His voice is overly cheerful, but his eyes are intent. Eddie gets the feeling he's looking for something. Eddie does not know what it is. 

"I'm fine," he says shortly. It's always better to make it clear when he doesn't want to be talked to. It never stops Richie, but it makes it less surprising when he eventually starts yelling. 

"How's your arm?" Ben asks, nodding at the crisp white cast. Eddie gets a horrible sense of déjà vu whenever he looks at it, so he doesn't follow Ben's gaze. 

"It's fine," he says. 

"Is that the only word you know how to say?" Richie teases, then tilts his head, pretending to consider his own words. Eddie knows it's pretend because Richie never actually thinks before he speaks. "Well, besides 'like.' And 'Richie.' You said those a couple of times, at the hospital." 

Eddie's stomach sinks. "What?" 

"'I like your hair,'" Richie says, his voice high-pitched in a horrible mockery of Eddie's own. "'I like your face, and all your jokes.'" 

"I would never say that," Eddie snaps, except when he looks around for support, Bill is avoiding eye contact and Stan is suddenly busy with his lunch. "...did I say that?" 

Richie's smile looks a little dim, now. "You don't remember?" 

"Remember _what_?" 

"That I... that you..." Richie makes a frustrated noise and shakes his head, shakes his hair into his eyes. "Never mind." 

He doesn't say much for the rest of lunch. 

Eddie has no idea what the fuck is going on.

* * *

Later that day, he opens his locker and a single piece of torn notebook paper falls out. It's folded a bunch of times, very carelessly, and the handwriting looks familiar, but it also looks like whoever wrote it took an absurd amount of time trying to make it neat. The lines are crisp and straight, unnaturally so. All it says is _I think you're the air, too_.

Eddie doesn't know what it means, but he feels like he should, and it's infuriating. There's something in the back of his head, some strand of thought that he tries to tug loose, but he can't quite grasp onto it, and the harder he tries, the worse it gets. 

He shows the note to his friends after the final bell rings. 

"Maybe they put it in the wrong locker," he says as they all pass it around. 

"Maybe you have a secret admirer," Beverly suggests, looking sly. 

" _Secret_ ," Stan scoffs, but before Eddie can asks him what he means, he's climbing on his bike and shouting his goodbyes. Bill follows him, looking very much like he's trying to escape the conversation. 

"Maybe someone is trying to tell you something," Richie says, but he just shrugs when Eddie asks him what that’s supposed to mean. 

Eddie's head hurts. 

His friends are weird. His life is weird. 

The note is weird, but he still keeps it tucked in a little secret place in his notebook, right at the very front.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my least favorite song on the album, and my favorite fic in the series. Who knew.
> 
> Also, I never really post there, but you are welcome to come talk to me on [tumblr](http://namingtheruins.tumblr.com).


End file.
